


Where I Go, When I Go There

by aintweproudriff



Series: Author's Picks [13]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Bitty and Chowder are such good buds, Dex and Nursey get physically close to Chowder and it raises questions, How many jokes can I make about chill, M/M, Takes place in years 2 and 3, that's it that's the fic, zimbits and ollie/wicks are implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 13:28:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15025616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintweproudriff/pseuds/aintweproudriff
Summary: "What's the deal with you three, then?" Bitty whispered, leaning into Chowder's side and taking the freshly cleaned bowl from him, wiping it off with a clean rag and setting it aside to dry."What do you mean?""You know what I mean," he smiled up at Chris. "They keep finding excuses to be touching you, and you always seem to be doin' the same to them."Chris stopped washing in favor of leaning on the counter and resting his hands in the bubbles on top of some standing water. "You probably won't believe me if I tell you that we're hockey players and we're just naturally tactile, right?"





	Where I Go, When I Go There

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Check Please fic, so please go easy on me if these characters are out of character or I made a mistake or anything like that. I really love polyfrogs, but unfortunately there isn't much content, so here's my go at it. I feel kinda bad for not including Farmer, but I'm sure that I'll get to write her eventually.  
> If you're here from my writing from other fandom, thanks! I'm sure I'll get back to those fics later.

Chowder had a problem. Well, not a problem exactly, because problems were bad. This was a sticky situation, but it certainly was not bad. In fact, it could actually be kind of fun, when it didn’t scare the shit out of him. And when it did scare the shit out of him, it was still kind of fun. Dangerous and exciting and strange. But still scary, like he wasn’t quite sure where it was going, or like if he made one wrong step, he could go tumbling off the highwire. It was all very confusing, and it made his head spin like he hadn’t experienced in a long time. The closest thing he could compare it to was when he fell out of a tree when he was fourteen and, on the way down, realized that it would end poorly. But on the way down, if it was fun, then why not enjoy it?

Like he said, the whole thing was very confusing. He had always hoped that one day, when he went to college, he would find a group of people he clicked with, who understood him and made him feel at home, even if he was far away from home. He was grateful to have gotten that, but he hadn’t quite expected for it to happen to this degree. 

-

He had developed the crushes on the taddy tour, when he met Dex and more or less clung onto him for dear life. What could he say? Dex was cute, if a little anxious and unsure about the whole thing. Even though he tried to hide it, so was Chris. College on the other side of the country was a scary thing. There was Derek Nurse, however, who seemed to not care about the whole issue. He kept calling things ‘chill,’ and he was. Excited to be there at Samwell, obviously, but not as overjoyed as Chris was. It was totally probable that Nursey was only happy to be there to see his friend from Andover. Either way, Chris had noticed him quickly, and hidden his blush in his excitement about deciding to attend Samwell. 'Class of Samwell, 2018,' ran over and over in his mind, pushing down thoughts of the other boys from that tour who may or may not decide to graduate with him.

-

He thought about how cute they were again when they actually started practice. Staying stationary in the goal one day during practice when the puck was on the other side of the ice, something about the way Number 28 skated drew his eye and kept it there. He was glad he had the instinct to stop the puck before it came into his goal, because otherwise he wouldn’t have seen it coming. Derek laughed at him, his hockey gear shaking as he skated away. At the break, Chris was only able to look away from him for a second. When he turned around to see him again, he watched nervously as he skated into Dex, whose first reaction was to shove his defense partner away from him, which of course prompted yelling. Chowder watched helplessly as Holster got between them, yelling at them to take some time away from each other and off the ice. They both looked a lot nicer when they were calm and focused on something. Not that they didn’t look good when they were angry-

And that was the beginning of the end, also known as the moment Chris realized that if he liked the way that the two of them looked when they were at their absolute worst, he had no chance of survival if they every shaped up.

-

Still, against his better judgement, he did everything in his power to get them to be friends. He even talked to Bitty about it, but Bitty turned out not to be the most powerful force in the universe, although he could have fooled Chowder. Not even Bitty was as influential as time, which seemed to have Dex and Nursey softening towards each other after many, many kegsters, games, early morning practices, and time spent on buses squished next to each other because the three frogs were the only ones who could tolerate the sound of Dex and Nursey’s fighting. Over time, the harsh words became funny instead of cutting, and the disconnect on the ice morphed into cohesion. They trusted each other to connect, on the ice and off of it. And while it was obvious that they weren’t Ransom and Holster or Jack and Shitty, they were good. They were comfortable. They were Nursey and Dex.

Chowder was glad to see it happen, and he wanted to take credit for a little bit of it, but he knew that was impossible. It wasn’t him who did it. He hoped he was a factor, like they agreed to get along a little more because of their mutual best friend, but since he didn’t know, he wouldn’t assume.

The getting along, while a good thing, only seemed to make his problem worse. Like he’d realized at the beginning of the year: if he liked them when they were outraged, he’d be totally gone for them when they were happy. Never had he been more right but wanted to be more wrong. It wasn’t the fact that he was crushing so hard it hurt that was the problem, although that sucked. It was more the way that Dex and Nursey’s crushes on each other were visible from outer space. They spent as much time as possible together: bickering and trying to get a rise out of each other, wrestling and ruffling each others’ hair and feathers, and staring at each other when they thought no one was watching.

-

They had joined him in his dorm room to watch a movie, and the three of them ended up squished together on the bed, a laptop in front of them. Dex was all but sitting on Nursey's lap, with Nursey's hand sitting gently on Dex's knee. Chowder had, unfortunately, been pushed to the side, but was trying not to think about it and instead focused on the movie. Over time, though, he couldn't help but lean over and press into Nursey's side. Nursey looked down at him, smiled, put his free hand on Chowder's arm, and turned back to the movie. Then Chowder really couldn't focus. He couldn't be expected to, right? Not with skin against his side and arm burning a hole in his concentration. He took deep breaths, trying to steady himself.

"Are you alright, C?" Dex asked. "You look like, stiff."

"Those are strong words from you, Dex," Nursey looked at him, and Dex's blush covered up to his ears. "Are you telling him to chill?"

Chowder smiled slightly, shaking his head. "Yeah, no, I'm fine. Just, um-" something exploded on screen "-this whole fight scene thing kinda spooked me is all."

Nursey's head turned, his eyebrows creasing. "Should we change the movie or speed through this part? We can do that."

"No, no, don't worry about it," Chowder leaned up against him, making an effort to relax his body into the cuddle pile. "It's cool."

-

From there, the problem only worsened. The problem in question, of course, being the way that Dex and Nursey found themselves clawing for the opportunity to be in physical contact with Chowder. A hand on his back before practice, a friendly push after practice, knees touching while sitting at the table in the Haus eating pie, hugging him for too long after they came back for the summer, pressed too close together on the dance floor at a kegster, and falling asleep on each other after the kegster when they all crashed in his room. They were everywhere, all the time. And Chris found himself loving every second of it, because of course he loved being with his friends. It was just that as his sophomore year progressed, he became more and more sure that he wasn’t the only one noticing the changes in - behavior.

It seemed like everyone knew it was happening, and Chowder didn’t know if he was being paranoid or if people actually stopped whispering when they saw him walk in the room.

But of course, Bitty was the one to actually bring it up first. Dex and Nursey were only in the other room, but Chowder was in the kitchen helping Bitty with after-baking clean up.

"What's the deal with you three, then?" Bitty whispered, leaning into Chowder's side and taking the freshly cleaned bowl from him, wiping it off with a clean rag and setting it aside to dry.

"What do you mean?"

"You know what I mean," he smiled up at Chris. "They keep finding excuses to be touching you, and you always seem to be doin' the same to them."

Chris stopped washing in favor of leaning on the counter and resting his hands in the bubbles on top of some standing water. "You probably won't believe me if I tell you that we're hockey players and we're just naturally tactile, right?"

Bitty shook his head and nudged Chowder to step aside. He moved to pick up the job of drying dishes, while Bitty set out to work on cleaning them. "No I would not. I've seen what tactile hockey players are like, and this is more than that. Shitty or Ollie and Wicks are tactile hockey players-" he stopped suddenly, blinking his eyes rapidly, as if reconsidering. "Well, maybe that's not the best example, since, well, y'know how those two are. But my point stands, Chowder."

"And your point is?"

Bitty sighed. "They like you, Chowder. They want to talk to you about it, I'm sure of it. They just don't know how to say it."

"They like each other." Chowder shook his head.

"Honey," Bitty smiled somewhat sadly. "That's also true. But those aren't mutually exclusive. They don't know how to say any of it. And if you like them anywhere near how they like each other and they like you, then-"

"I should say something?"

Bitty nodded.

"I know I should, probably. That doesn't mean I know how to any better than they do."

That made Bitty laugh, and nod. "That, I can understand. But you miss all the shots you never take, and all that."

Chowder rolled his eyes. The amount of times he'd heard that. "Yeah, well. I'm the goalie, so-"

Bitty smacked him with the rag. "You know what I meant, you ridiculous jerk."

“I just don’t know how you think you have the authority to tell me what to do with boys,” Chowder pointed out. “Like, I’m sorry for saying so, but you’re not very experienced.”

“Hm, that’s what you think,” Bitty smiled. “I probably know more than you think I do.”

Chris laughed. “What, do you have a boyfriend that we don't know about or something?”

Bitty looked like he was going to say something, but they heard Dex shout from the room over, and Bitty and Chowder rolled their eyes at the same time. They listened for another sound, and when it was Nursey that shouted next, Bitty leaned backwards. 

"Boys! Are you playing nice over there?" He turned to Chowder and grinned, like he enjoyed mothering them. Chowder guessed that he did. 

"Uh-huh Bitty!" Dex yelled.  
Chowder tried to get back to drying a dish, but when the next sound from the other room was a crash, Bitty shoved his shoulder. 

"Go get your boys in line," he laughed, and Chowder giggled and left.

-

It was late at night, maybe early in the morning, when Chris gave in. The three of them had escaped from a kegster; it was a small party, and none of them were in the mood, but all of them wanted company. So they found themselves by the pond, maybe a little tipsy but maybe mostly happy. Nursey flopped down on the grass, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Dex liked to imply that Nursey didn’t care about things, and so did Nursey, sometimes. Chris felt it, though, even if Nursey wasn’t touching him. Which, of course, he was, as soon as Chowder joined him on the ground.

It started with Nursey’s hand next to Chowder’s side. Then Dex’s hand on Chowder’s hip. Then Nursey’s hand intertwined with Chowder’s, and Dex moved his hand up to rest on Chowder’s stomach. The air around them was cold, which only intensified how much their skin on his felt like live wires.

“Do you guys-” Chowder stopped his sentence and sighed.

“Do us guys what?” Nursey asked.

“Know what you’re doing.” The words flowed from his mouth before he knew how to stop them.

Dex laughed, the sound sarcastic through the night air. “In life, or in general, or something in particular?”

“With this.” There was no turning back at this point. “The whole touching thing. The let’s-make-physical-contact-with-Chowder thing. It’s incessant.”

“Good word,” he heard Nursey whisper.

“Do you want us to stop touching you?” Dex asked, raising his hand up so that it no longer rested on Chowder’s stomach.

“No!” he grabbed Dex’s wrist and pulled it back downwards. “I just. Want to make sure we’re on the same page with what it means.”

He heard Nursey suck in a breath. “So, um, what does it mean? To you?”

Chris’s hands unhooked themselves from Nursey’s hand and Dex’s arm before he knew what was happening. His right hand, the one that had been on Dex’s wrist, reached across Nursey’s chest and dug into the cold grass on the other side of him, so that Chowder was hovering above his friend.

“This,” Chris breathed.

And then, Nursey was bringing his head up and meeting Chris’s lips with his own. The grass under his fingers was cool, a nice contrast to the heat in his face and - well. Everywhere else. Chowder pulled back as much as possible to take a deep breath, but he couldn’t keep his smile hidden. Neither could Nursey, and if this were any other time, he would be being chirped for losing his chill. Chowder looked over to Dex to see if he would say something, but he was staring at them, his eyes and mouth open wide.

“Can I kiss you too?” Dex asked, glancing from Chowder to Nursey and back.

“Which one of us?” Nursey laughed as Chowder rolled backwards to sit again. As much fun as his previous position over Nursey was, it wasn’t all that comfortable.

“Yes. Both. Either.”

Chris giggled and leaned in towards Dex.

Maybe the whole physical contact thing wasn’t as complicated as he’d thought it was.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!! I'd love if you left kudos or comments to let me know what you thought. If you feel like it, come say hi to me on tumblr @allbesolucky or send me prompts on my fanfic tumblr @javidblue.


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